6 Questions That I Need Anwsering :)

[Aggg45]

Hi just wondering If the pandora would be suitable for runnning ubuntu (or a very small distro)

I think the main functions it has to do in ubuntu is just running ftp/web surfing and a bit of typing - I've listed my questions out by numbering just so to serperate each point


Hopefully one brave soul will be able to answer them all


1. is there a 'skimped' ubuntu distro in the works?, I'm not sure it could run that well with only 128mb ram unless I use DSL which I'm reluctant to do

2. On video Playback how does it fair? to my knowledge it can handle Divx/mpeg files pretty easily but what about mkv files? (not the very large ones of course)

3. a usb mouse should be supported but what about if I get a 2 port usb adapter will there be enough power to run both devices ie* keyboard/flashdrive

4. How long is battery life considering ((if)) its possible to run ubuntu - if the OS the was stored on a SD card I'm hoping for 5hrs (casual web surfing/ maybe some games web browsing)

5. will their be a larger battery pack?

6. from the videos in youtube the games from snes and megadrive ran in 4:3 and didn't utilize the whole screen - please tell me there is full screen support?

 

[mindlord]

Hi just wondering If the pandora would be suitable for runnning ubuntu (or a very small distro)

I think the main functions it has to do in ubuntu is just running ftp/web surfing and a bit of typing - I've listed my questions out by numbering just so to serperate each point

Hopefully one brave soul will be able to answer them all


1. is there a 'skimped' ubuntu distro in the works?, I'm not sure it could run that well with only 128mb ram unless I use DSL which I'm reluctant to do

2. On video Playback how does it fair? to my knowledge it can handle Divx/mpeg files pretty easily but what about mkv files? (not the very large ones of course)

3. a usb mouse should be supported but what about if I get a 2 port usb adapter will there be enough power to run both devices ie* keyboard/flashdrive

4. How long is battery life considering ((if)) its possible to run ubuntu - if the OS the was stored on a SD card I'm hoping for 5hrs (casual web surfing/ maybe some games web browsing)

5. will their be a larger battery pack?

6. from the videos in youtube the games from snes and megadrive ran in 4:3 and didn't utilize the whole screen - please tell me there is full screen support?


1. Not officially. The official linux is Angstrom based. Which still offers, an XFCE based GUI and tons of goodies. Angstrom is perfect for a device like the Pandora, and makes a logical choice. That does not mean that someone won't create a *buntu based distro specifically for the Pandora sometime in the future.

2. I see no reason why any container format couldn't be supported. There are already talks of porting VLC, which supports all well known containers. As far as horsepower goes. I also see no reason why even large video files shouldn't play well.

3. The USB host port is fully powered, and using the hub should allow N devices to be attached. Where N is 500milliamps divided by the draw of each device attached. So portable USB harddrive encosures will need all the power. But a mouse + a flash drive should work just fine.

4. 10 hours under moderate load, which covers the activities you list there. I would think. Playing video, or doing heavy multitasking could shorten that some, but if you kill the GUI and are just playing MP3's they speculate 100 hours of playtime.

5. They say there is a 5000mAh battery that will be available sooner or later, but that was pretty old news, and a lot has changed since then. You could buy a second 4000mAh battery and just swap out when needed.

6. Full screen support will be up to each induvidual programmer. Some Emulators will take advantage of it, others won't. I suspect others will find more inventive ways to utilize the space, with status information, battery life, mp3 player? Who knows.

 

[baztailor]

Make your way to the right section, here.

Pretty much all the answers to the questions you've asked can be found in The Pandora Information Index, plus a lot more.

 

[Squidge]

Is there some kind of strange attraction to posting Pandora topics in the gp2x section?

Moved.

 

[Prometheus]

1. is there a 'skimped' ubuntu distro in the works?, I'm not sure it could run that well with only 128mb ram unless I use DSL which I'm reluctant to do

The machine has already been seen running a version of Xubuntu, which at the time had yet to be optimised, and it appeared to run quite nicely. You can see the videos of that here (see the September 28th and 30th updates in the list). This isn't what will be pre-installed, but you'll easily be able to run something like this from an SD Card.

Regarding Damn Small Linux, you won't be able to use that anyway unless someone ports it to the ARM processor architecture, as this is what the Pandora uses. This is not an x86-based machine, so you will need to take this into consideration when picking an additional distro to use with it. (The specific variant in use here is armel, if I'm not mistaken.)

Mind you, I'm not sure that there'd be much benefit to using a separate distro for the things you mentioned - the impression I've gotten is that the provided one will be able to do all of that anyway.

QUOTE

3. a usb mouse should be supported but what about if I get a 2 port usb adapter will there be enough power to run both devices ie* keyboard/flashdrive


My understanding is that you'll need to use a USB 2.0 hub even if you want to use just one mouse on the full-sized USB 2.0 port, as there isn't an internal hub to handle the "translations" of the various speeds that USB 2.0 offers.

QUOTE

5. will their be a larger battery pack?


I haven't heard anything to this effect, but then, I haven't read every single thread in the Pandora section, so I may have missed something. That said, with the sort of battery life that's on offer here (an example given some time ago was that ~8.5 hours was gotten whilst emulating the SNES - that is to say, 8.5 hours whilst actually doing something ), I'm not quite sure why a larger-capacity battery would be necessary - unless you happen to take flights/commutes that are exceptionally long.

QUOTE

6. from the videos in youtube the games from snes and megadrive ran in 4:3 and didn't utilize the whole screen - please tell me there is full screen support?


That's down to the individual emulators' authors. I suspect that at some point there will be options to suit everyone. That doesn't mean that there definitely will be, or that anyone should expect such, though.

 

[PoisonedV]

1. why do you care about ubuntu?
2. its got most video drivers including h.264 i believe
3. squidge

 

[Squidge]

3. you can, to some degree, use the same amount as on a PC, but a hub is actually REQUIRED for hi speed devices.

You mean low and full speed devices?

 

[whiskthecat]

Wait, so I can't plug a usb flash drive straight into the back of the pandora without a hub? :huh:

Can someone please clarify this?

 

[PoisonedV]

3. you can, to some degree, use the same amount as on a PC, but a hub is actually REQUIRED for hi speed devices.

You mean low and full speed devices?

:unsure:

 

[CCmachined]

3. you can, to some degree, use the same amount as on a PC, but a hub is actually REQUIRED for hi speed devices.

You mean low and full speed devices?

:unsure:

no no no no nononononono.

the pandora's USB Host is High Speed (2.0). you'll need a hub to use some devices that run on 1.0 or 1.1. joysticks work fine without a hub, i imagine mice and keyboards will too. i don't know what else you would need on USB... ^^


edit: sorry as usb 2.0 is high speed, despite subconscious logic telling me "full" = "maximum" or "best"...

 

[Aggg45]

thanks guys for all your replies!


but will the pandora distro support csa.sh file ? I need it to connect to my local internet at uni it's some kind of security check app

that's why I need to have ubuntu on it


TO be honest XP would have been perfect- absolute no hassle with wifi, but I'm guessing that's just a pipe dream for pandora?

 

[bigtruck]

.sh files are just shell scripts, the equivalent of Windows's batch files. Whether or not it will work depends on what commands the script uses, specifically whether there are also other programs your university has you download in order to connect which are called by said script. If there aren't, I don't see any reason why such a script wouldn't work on the Pandora, though it is possible that it would need minor modification.

And XP will never run on the Pandora, barring Microsoft releasing the source code. If that happens, I think the imminent apocalypse would be a more pressing matter than the Pandora.

 

[Squidge]

the pandora's USB Host is Full Speed (2.0). you'll need a hub to use some devices that run on 1.0 or 1.1. joysticks work fine without a hub, i imagine mice and keyboards will too. i don't know what else you would need on USB... ^^

Erm, Full Speed USB is only 12Mbits/second where Hi-Speed USB is 480Mbits/second.

As for the rest of your post, a citation would be nice.

 

[PoisonedV]

3. you can, to some degree, use the same amount as on a PC, but a hub is actually REQUIRED for hi speed devices.

You mean low and full speed devices?

:unsure:

no no no no nononononono.

the pandora's USB Host is Full Speed (2.0). you'll need a hub to use some devices that run on 1.0 or 1.1. joysticks work fine without a hub, i imagine mice and keyboards will too. i don't know what else you would need on USB... ^^

in a video from the devboard, they had a gamepad through a hub. not sure if this is relevant

 

[Prometheus]

TO be honest XP would have been perfect- absolute no hassle with wifi, but I'm guessing that's just a pipe dream for pandora?

As already noted, the Pandora is not an x86-based machine. Windows XP is x86-only, and is closed source, and thus not possible for anyone to port. (And BigTruck covered the rest of it. )

 

[hobbyman II]

plus it`s traditional to kill people who mention winblows on a predominantly Linux based systems forum (nothing personal you understand)

hobbyman

 

[Karel Jansens]

TO be honest XP would have been perfect- absolute no hassle with wifi, but I'm guessing that's just a pipe dream for pandora?

INFIDEL!!!
YOU WILL DIE!!!!!

Oh wait, hobbyman II had it covered already. Okay then, I'm good.

 

[Aggg45]

plus it`s traditional to kill people who mention winblows on a predominantly Linux based systems forum (nothing personal you understand)

hobbyman

lol should have known better, but in an uni environment running linux is hell you often get glares from people running mac/windows thinking "what the hell is guy doing?" :lol:


anyways thanks, I'll wait a while and see how it goes, I won't pcik up one until next year anyways hopefully by then development of the ported ubuntu should be up to scratch


thanks for you help guys will keep track of whats going on

 

[PoisonedV]

like someone else explained in the forums here... most people want ubuntu, but they don't know why. plain debian would fair much better

 

[bigtruck]

lol should have known better, but in an uni environment running linux is hell you often get glares from people running mac/windows thinking "what the hell is guy doing?" :lol:

Ugh, I know what you mean. I'll be taking notes in vim or updating packages or something (I use the terminal for just about everything), and nearly everyone who sees me immediately assumes I'm "hacking". I tried explaining what a command line was at first, and how it's really just a different interface and how you can do more or less the same things you can do with a GUI. Eventually I got tired of it and now tell everyone who asks that I'm breaking into the NSA.

Edit: Not to mention the fact that my school's network administrator loves Windows and as such has a scanner program that only runs on Windows that has to be downloaded to client computers to use the wireless network. It checks to make sure you have a virus scanner and don't have things like p2p programs installed. Thankfully, he's completely incompetent and said security measures are trivial to bypass.